Mary Magdalene at the Empty Tomb a Reflection on John 20

All Saints Alive 3 Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb A reflection on John 20. Originally preached by Geoff Oates at 10.00am on 22nd July 2018 Jesus said to her, ‘Mary’. She turned towards repented as she hadn’t had time to put her him and said in Hebrew, ‘Rabboni’. clothes back on yet. All in the name of piety, of course. Mary Magdalene is one of a small number of Biblical characters that really catch our I’m happy to report that Pope Francis has imaginations. recently had the courage to overrule his illustrious predecessor, and Mary More than 200 English parish churches are Magdalene’s reputation amongst Catholics dedicated to her. Oxford and Cambridge has been restored. Universities name a prestigious college after her. The Eastern Orthodox and Protestant traditions never took much notice of it all What do we know about her? Perhaps anyway. because the Gospels say so little about her, there is plenty of room for us to speculate, Perhaps we for better or worse! can excuse poor old Well, if you’re a fan of Dan Brown’s Gregory’s bestselling “Da Vinci” Code, Mary confusion, Magdalene was Jesus’ wife, and the mother because one of of his children whose descendents went on the tricky things to dominate 8th century European politics! about the Dan Brown wasn’t the first person to get this Gospel story is idea. It’s been popping up amongst the sheer fantasists and conspiracy theorists for number of centuries. It makes a good story, but it’s Marys. Just in pure fiction. John’s account of the death It was Pope Gregory the Great, in the 7th and century, who did Mary Magdalene the resurrection of Jesus, we meet Mary his greatest disservice. For some reason he mother, Mary the wife of Cleopas and Mary managed to get her muddled up with the Magdalene. Luke and Mark throw in Mary woman ‘who lived a sinful life’ in Luke the Mother of James as well, and Matthew, Chapter 7 – the woman who poured running out of labels or imagination, and just perfume over Jesus feet and dried them adds ’the other Mary’. And of course, don’t with her hair. So he declared she must have forget Mary the sister of Martha….. been a prostitute. And you didn’t argue with Popes in those days. The scholars do tell us that Mary was far and away the most common girl’s name in 1st Sadly this went hand in hand with the Century Palestine. Or rather, Miriam was. Church’s age-old preoccupation with Mary, Maria, Marie, these are all our sexual sin, especially female sexual sin over European versions of the name. Miriam, of and above others, and over the centuries course, was the sister of Moses. For pious Mary Magdalene became, in the Roman Jewish families, Miriam was one of the few Church at least, a kind of ‘pin-up’ repentant prominent and praiseworthy female figures sinner. Pin-up sometimes in a rather literal from the old scriptures to name your sense, at least for the Renaissance artists daughter after. who found that Mary gave them a great excuse to paint lavish pictures of a curvy So what does the Bible actually tell us about young woman, who had obviously only just Mary Magdalene? All Saints Alive 4 First, we know where she came from. Her learn that Jesus has waited for her. It is in her name means ‘Mary from Magdala’, a small very helplessness that Jesus can reach her. town on the shore of Lake Galilee. Luke tells And she doesn’t have to wait long. At first us that she was one of a group of women she seems not to recognise the man who that travelled with Jesus and the disciples, appears behind her. Is there a broader truth and who gave them financial support ‘from there? When God comes to any of us in our their own means’. The scholars suggest that hours of crisis, how often do we realise only she was probably a widow, as they were later – perhaps years later - that the person the only women at that time who would who came to our aid was not after all a have control of their own money – or the gardener, but Jesus himself? freedom to wonder around for weeks on end following itinerant preachers. ‘Jesus said to her, ’Mary’. That most common of names, and yet her name. So whilst they may be rather in the Jesus did not die for the salvation of the background in the Gospel story, as any world. He died, and rose, for Mary from Church treasurer will tell you, Mary and the Magdala. He died and rose for me. He died other women were pretty central to the and rose for you. Mission. Nothing goes very far without a core of faithful, regular donors. Perhaps And in a dialogue of just two words we find Mary Magdalen should be the patron saint the whole truth of the Gospel. of stewardship campaigns? ‘Mary’, ‘Rabboni’. Luke also mentions, almost in parenthesis, that Jesus had driven seven demons from Through Christ, God calls us by name. In her. The incident is not described first hand faith, we confess him as our Lord. in any of the Gospels, but we can assume that poor Mary has been a pretty mixed up If we remember Mary Magdalene for kid before she encountered Jesus. nothing else, let us remember her for this. As the model for our salvation. And that is all, apart from the passage from John’s Gospel that tells of the first Easter And as the first person to confess our risen morning. Here she moves from the Lord, we can acknowledge her as the very background to centre stage. For St John first Christian. reveals Mary Magdalene as the first mortal being to meet and recognise our risen Saviour. When the women, and then Peter and John, discover the empty tomb, they run off again, in excitement, in confusion. To tell, to get help, somehow to respond in action to this amazing and disturbing event. Only Mary Magdalene stays in the garden. It is not hope, but grief that binds her to the place. For her the empty tomb is just a painful disruption to the rites of mourning she had come to perform, the anointing and preparation of the body for final burial. Was even that to be denied her? She stays and waits. She knows she is not ready to move on. In the deepest crisis of her life, she waits. And as Mary waits, so we .

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